HD 'Not Impressed'
by tigersilver
Summary: AU; Post-Hogwarts; Aurors!; Flangst/Angst; Draco POV. This is an anti-fluff fic with two endings-sappy and non-sappy, in 3 parts, tho' technically 4, since there's an Alt Ending. In which Draco may be Cyrano or he may not...
1. Chapter 1

**HP Not Impressed**

**Part 1/3**

Draco wasn't expecting this. He'd rather Potter had gotten him _nothing_ than this. This monstrosity, this abomination. This insult.

This clear indication that two months of on-again, off-again shagging, snogging and flouting departmental procedure for the sake of fleshly satisfaction was exactly that—and nothing more.

And Salazar! He hoped he'd still have time to cancel the Portkey to Paris, the fine dinner awaiting them, the specially chosen Champagne and Port vintages, the 24-karat gold-sheathed chocolates commissioned from the very best kept secret _chocolatier_ in Wizarding France. As Potter, the scoundrel, didn't deserve them.

As Potter, the ungrateful scourge on Draco's heart, clearly didn't expect them, nor want them. Not if his sole offering on Valentine's Day was _this_.

Draco flicked a fretful, dissatisfied fingertip at the 60 p. bag of Maltesers he'd found on his desk, buried under a mountain of other gaily presented offerings. Oh, it was red, yes, in the best tradition of the lover's holiday, and it was sweets, but the imagined taste was bitter indeed. Not even a card to go with—just a note scrawled on an elderly memo, a bold, black ink arrow aimed in the Malteser packet's general direction.

"Happy Valentine's, Malfoy," it read, mocking him. "Love and kisses, Potter."

He'd wished, he had, for so much more than this. Very reluctantly and with much understandable hesitation at first, but even so.

*

He was suitably chilly at the luncheon meeting, allowing three other Aurors to sit between them, and not glancing over at Potter, not once.

It slayed him. He'd thought—oh, but never mind what he'd thought. Obviously, they weren't on the same page, much less the same text. Not that he really believed Potter could read, much less between the lines. In fact, his love life was terribly 'much less' than he'd so fondly thought it was.

Oh, but Potter would pay for this unwitting humiliation. Draco just had to think of ways and means. But he'd start with simply ignoring the oblivious git, and go on from there.

*

"Hey, Draco!"

Potter caught him as he was scuttling back to the office cubicle Draco shared with Nott, and hailed him loud enough the entire floor could hear them. No chance, then, of continuing on by presenting a chilly cold front; not unless he wanted to earn yet more unspoken dislike from his fellows. They were of the opinion Draco was a domineering, 'my-upper-class-shite-doesn't-smell' fraud and a poser, who'd weaseled his way into the Auroring programme and established himself there only for his own ulterior purposes. The last was true, of course, but Draco's agenda wasn't solely propping up the Malfoy's flagging reputation; far from it.

"Potter," Draco returned, "You bellowed?" and kept his eyes on Potter's tie. It was loosened—in another hour, the git would be half-undressed: shirtsleeves rolled up over forearms, robes discarded, tie completely missing, shirttails pulled out of his raggedy old Muggle jeans. Temptation on the hoof, though if asked by another Auror, naturally Draco would've called Potter's dishabille disgraceful. They'd a professional working relationship to maintain, after all.

"Yes. Could hardly miss that, could you, what with the way I was shouting," Potter smiled, and any sting from his pathetic attempt at sarcasm dissipated. Draco's mouth twitched.

"No," he allowed, "but what can I do for you?" He would endeavour to do a great deal, if Potter wished it.

"Oh, yeah. Er, the singletons amongst us are heading out later, after work. You know, toss back a lager or two and celebrate our unattached state on this fine, fucking excuse for a national holiday. Want to tag along?"

Draco's eyes widened—he would not blink, he would not—but he couldn't prevent the corners of his mouth from tightening. He would not--would not—let his hurt show, either; no, not to Potter, of all people.

"Where to?" he inquired instead, and shuffled the stacks of files in his arms, as if they were the Grail and he in charge, a modern-day Percival. "The Leakey?"

"Hogsmeade, actually," Potter smiled at him yet. "There's some new joint there; does karaoke and whatnot. You game?"

"…I suppose," Draco replied, and refused to think of the Portkey, or Paris, or the extra-special chocolates. Refused, flat out. Not going there. "Later, maybe. I've enough work to clear up on Kauffman & Son's that I might be quite late, though. If at all." No, he had Owls to send, dismantling his fine, shiny plans for surprising Potter with Parisian lights and delights, dazzling him with all the things a Malfoy could offer as a matter of course.

"Oh—right, right," Potter nodded, as if he completely understood. "Yeah, me and Ron have an arrest this afternoon, too, but it should clear up right smart. So—hey, yeah. We'll see you when we see you, right? The Galumphing Gryphon, it is. Brand new place on the High Street—can't miss it."

"Of course," Draco's heart was under Potter's heel as he spun about, heading back to his cubicle. "I mean to say—if I can," Draco swallowed back bile and hoped he'd make it back to his own cubicle without vomiting up his gut, drowning as it was in the acid of disappointment. "Thanks," he said to Potter's back, as the git was half-way down the corridor already, obviously not really giving a hoot if Draco managed to join them or not.

"Hey—no problem," Potter grinned in the tilted, charming way he had, and his eyes glittered. "Catch you later, right?"

"Yes," Draco replied, wanting to scream aloud that Potter had already caught him and was torturing him about it, but Potter had met Weasel at the entrance of their office and was grinning up at him, instead.

Draco swept into his own office, and did not slam the door, though he dearly wanted to. He did blink, though, long and hard, and practiced his breathing techniques, the ones that the therapist said would help him overcome his nightmares. He wished heartily he'd wake up, and not be forced to walk about feeling so very trampled to death in public.

He was a fool, and then some, thinking Potter might...hoping Potter would. He was a fool, and of the worst sort.

*

It had been the Ministry New Year's Eve Party and he and Potter had naturally been consuming alcoholic drinks all evening, at the huge oval table the various workmates of his generation had snagged near the back of the streamer-and-balloon bedecked ballroom. A little too much alcohol, perhaps; enough to loosen Draco's tongue a bit, let him flirt. Potter had been interested, enough to invite him home, and Draco had succumbed to his own desires and gone along, still quite wary. But they'd snogged in the New Year, and then done a great deal more after that, celebrating minutes lost to regrets, and hours of pleasure yet to come—or so he'd thought.

There'd been so many things he'd thought, and all of them wrong-headed, Draco admitted, doggedly reading over the Kauffman file as he waited for Nott to return with the warrant. He'd been walking on air for days after that, thinking. They were fire and more fire in the sack, he and Potter; totally compatible, and Draco had relished the chance to finally touch him, the Golden Boy. Potter truly was, too. All his flaws—the tiny chip on one incisor, the glasses, the scattered laundry, the air of 'who, me?' innocence—were perfection, as was his Auror-honed body, and his knowledge of carnal delights, picked up elsewhere in ways Draco refused to consider too closely.

He'd just been plain old delighted, honestly, that they'd found their way to this place—Potter's bed—at last, after all those years of him following. Ducking behind circumstances, more like, and just happening to be there, and insinuating himself into Potter's life in such a way that he'd be accepted, some fine day. Oh, he'd been accepted, alright. But not, apparently, in quite the manner he'd wasted so much time hoping for.

But he'd go tonight. No reason not to, and all the reasons in the world to attend. He'd ensure that Potter, at least, wouldn't go home with anyone else, if he had to die trying. There were limits, even for him, and when and if Potter moved on, Draco would be tendering his resignation immediately.

Still, he could soldier on a bit longer. He could, even at the risk of a more public humiliation. Certainly the Weasel realized how Draco felt about his best mate; likely others did as well. Hard to hide it, really. Though he was duly thankful Potter didn't seem to see it, for all he was a speccy git.

*

The first day of Spring, Potter handed him a bedraggled Shasta daisy and a million-candlepower smile. It broke Draco's heart and nearly made him burst inappropriately into song. Draco had tentatively harbored ideas of celebrating the Equinox and the return of warm weather with some sort of official outing, or at least a nice dinner. He'd begun a garden instead, using an odd assortment of flowering plants and herbs to symbolize his sometimes flagging hopes: frail little saplings and seedlings more used to greenhouse glass than the elements. He'd quashed the undeniable urge to organize an intricate day around Potter, and had procured a boutonnière instead from the cart on the corner. That was pinned incongruously to the lapel of Potter's Muggle sports coat, and Draco was quite happy enough.

"Wow!" Potter exclaimed, when he'd pinned it on him. "Don't think I've worn one of these since the Yule Ball, Fourth Year." Draco had been delighted, though he'd stuffed his reaction back down his swallowing throat. Good to hear, that—it meant fewer romantic memories for him to compete with. "Thanks a lot, Draco, though I don't know why you'd bother."

"Well—it brightens up your antique plaid a bit, I'll say that for it," he observed dryly instead, falling back on faint sarcasm, and thrilled inwardly when Potter took his arm in weird little man-hug motion. Any touch was welcome, any time. He lived for those spontaneous moments, and took care never to admit it.

"Wanna grab lunch out or bring something back? Ron wants take-out," Potter asked him, and Draco sent his thoughts in the direction of the best to be had at a moment's notice, and bided his time for later, when there weren't so many other Aurors about. Perhaps he'd manage to get his dinner, if he played circumstances correctly.

"Out," Draco replied decisively, knowing he shouldn't, but any opportunity alone with Potter was fodder for wanks later and daydreams on the weekends when he didn't see him. There were far too many of those, times he spent ruthlessly doing, doing, doing, throwing himself bodily into any activity, as long as it tired him out. He needed to sleep, and to eat, and do all those things that kept him in tip-top shape. Potter was shagging him mainly because he looked sharp, and dressed well, and was clever to a fault. He could not afford to let himself go in any front.

"Brilliant," Potter smiled. "I know just the place—come on," and led the way off to the little Mediterranean restaurant two stops down the Tube line, the exact one Draco had scoped out a week or so before, when Potter mentioned he liked gyros and hummus.

"Right," Draco acquiesced, as they stepped smart through the sidewalk traffic. "Does the Weasel eat anything other than plain English cooking, though?" he asked for the sake of conversation. Another trick, that, seeming interested in Potter's mates.

"Oh, yes," Potter laughed. "He's a bloody Cook's Tour of culinary verve, Ron is. You'll learn he'll eat anything, as you get to know him," and Draco snorted with mirth, and had to work very hard indeed not to sing out about the future and promises of getting to know the important people in Potter's life better.

"I bet."

"Don't bother; you'd lose money. He's a sure thing, Ron is."

Spring was a fucking wonderful time of the year, it was. Draco could barely stand it, all the brilliant new growth budding and the hints of a flowering, lush summer ahead.

*

Draco refused to admit he collected Potteriana. There was no box under his bed or stash in his sock drawers. Certainly, he'd retained a few items here and there that held meaning, but he wasn't obsessed or anything. Not in an unhealthy way, at least. Adoration was very healthy; gave him an ideal to strive for, though Potter was far from that. Draco was the first to admit Potter was forgetful, often tardy and somewhat careless when it came to other's expectations. But he never forgot a promise, nor disavowed one, and he was never deliberately cruel.

If Draco was to venerate an idol, then it had better be the best available.

It was seeing him so friendly with Wood that hurt. Draco knew Potter was mates with many Hogwarts alumni, especially those who'd played Quidditch for Gryffindor. Wood frightened him, though. He'd smiling eyes, and a great figure; he was accessible and open and charming in ways Draco was not, nor would ever be.

The tickets to the United match with Portree had been purchased by the Auror department, as a way to promote good fellowship and reward them for a productive year thus far. By chance, he was seated near Potter and his little crowd, and by chance, he could overhear the banter between Wood and his on-again, off-again lover before the game.

Made Draco's teeth grind nearly to dust, it did. He concentrated on quaffing his watery concession-stand mead and not staring at Wood with daggers in his eyes. It wouldn't do, having Potter realize the extent of his jealousy.

"Hey, Draco!" Potter waved at him. Ron nodded and Thomas and the others did, too, all friendly enough at a distance. "Good to see you back!"

Draco gave a little wave in return, from his seat next to Nott, and thought positive thoughts quite deliberately. They were supposed to meet up after, he and Potter, and end up back at Potter's flat for some make-up shagging. He'd been on assignment in Bulgaria and hadn't seen Potter in two weeks.

"What're these?" he'd asked, the night before he left, when Potter pushed a few items into his hands after he'd snogged him for the last time at the flat's door.

"Oh, yeah!" Potter had actually blushed a bit. "These. Well, that one's a St. Christopher's Medal and that's a symbol of Hermes, the winged sandal one, and those are a few of those traveller's charms the ladies on Greensleeve's Way sell to the tourists. They're all harmless—don't worry. I wouldn't give you something that'd hurt you."

"Oh…thanks," Draco faltered, not knowing quite what to say to a handful of what looked like miscellaneous junk. "They're for travelling, you say?"

"Yeah—for good luck and safe journeys," Potter nodded. He'd seemed slightly embarrassed, though Draco didn't dwell on it. He was memorizing the pretty flush instead, and the way those green eyes shimmered and the endlessly mouthwatering line of Potter's neck where the coal-black mop brushed against it. He inhaled—Potter odor, bless him, freshly shagged—and tried to retain that, too. Two weeks was a fucking eternity. He'd die on the vine.

"Whatever," Potter shrugged his weird little present away. "You don't have to keep them or anything. Just thought I'd get 'em; you know, er—appease the old gods. Never go wrong with that, yeah?"

"Yeah," Draco agreed, not quite following, but wanting to. "Ah—stay safe, alright? Live up to your awful nickname, Potter, whilst I'm toiling away in foreign climes, will you? Don't want any bad news harking back at me on the grapevine and ruining my visit."

"Sure," Potter smiled, and that was Draco's sun, right there, rising. He'd take that memory out later and tell over it, let it warm him. It had done, a bit, but nothing compared to actually seeing Potter in the flesh.

In the flesh, and flirting outrageously with Wood, right under Draco's nose. He'd thought he'd managed to get those useless emotions he still toted about with him under control; he hadn't.

There'd better still be a 'later' in the offing, though, Draco swore, and the promised, much-anticipated shagging. He'd likely expire without it, at this rate. Or brutally murder Wood with a filched Snitch, or something. Bawl like an infant, perhaps, at the gruesome sight of Potter making sheep's eyes at another man when Draco was sitting right there, not a stone's throw away.

"You alright, mate?" Nott asked, nudging him with a friendly elbow. "You look a bit off, all the sudden. Feeling well?"

"Yes," Draco answered, because how could he not? "Of course. Just a mite tired from Portkeying, that's all."

*

Harry's Garden. That's what Draco called it, for want of a better name. It contained any number of plants that normally wouldn't be seen keeping company, and became progressively odder as Draco learnt more about Potter up close and personal. He'd started with rosemary, for remembrance, and rue, for all he'd missed, not befriending Potter sooner. Heart'sease and bleeding heart, both for obvious, though contradictory, reasons, and lilies, all colours and species, for Potter's beloved mother, the woman he'd inherited those amazing green eyes from. Speedwell and leafy green basil, for Potter's grace on a broom and to keep him safe, always; spearmint, fuzzy-leaved and pungent, for the underlying taste of his gorgeous mouth; aster and lavender for love; coriander for the unending ache in Draco's groin that kept him awake nights, dry-mouthed and wanting. There were forget-me-not's and maidenhair ferns, to demonstrate Draco's ardour for Potter to the world; gladiolus spires to tell of how it happened, so long ago, in the robe woman's shop, and hyacintha to speak of his jealousy, the acid that burnt through his veins when Potter carelessly flirted, as he so often seemed to. And a profusion of jonquils and fragrant roses, that spoke of devotion and yearning and hope.

Draco often spent time there, weeding and pinching off spent blooms or leggy stalks that threatened to fall over without propping. It was a tranquil corner in the greater lands of Malfoy extending 'round it, and smelt divine as spring wended its way into early summer and his association with Potter continued on.

The day after New Year's, he'd expected Potter's Owl any moment. Had refused to leave the Manor on any excuse whatsoever, expecting that. But that day ended uneventfully, as had the next, and by the third, Draco had to admit that perhaps Potter hadn't quite understood his intentions. He was offering himself up for the taking, no questions asked, and any normal Wizard would've known that, but Potter was always a special case. So Draco had bided his time patently, watching for the Weasel to be off, and Potter to be left alone in his office; had procured a cup of the coffee Potter preferred—dark, sweet, loaded with cream, and a scant dash of cinnamon—from the cart outside the Ministry; had cast a spell on his hands so they wouldn't tremble unduly and ventured finally, casually into Potter's cubicle.

"Ah—the other night, New Year's," he'd started, resting a trim hip on the absent Weasel's desk, "it was good, that." Draco prided himself on how very off-hand he was at that moment, and kept his eyes fixed on Potter's scarred forehead in the way he'd learnt served to make him appear to be both serious and sincere. Convincing.

"Oh, oh!" Potter exclaimed, lounging back in his rolling desk chair. He looked up at Draco with those memorable eyes of his, and Draco whipped up his inner gladiator. No backing down now; no balking.

"Right, yeah…" Potter nodded, and seemed a bit chuffed at the memory, thank Salazar. He nodded again, for emphasis and grinned a bit. "It _was_ enjoyable, yes. Um, er—thanks."

He took the proffered coffee and eyed Draco carefully, with eyebrows up just enough to indicate his minor puzzlement over his co-worker's intrusion into his messy abode. Draco hadn't been so pushy prior to their shared New Year's Eve; hadn't dared, quite, afraid of frightening Potter off entirely.

"Yeah, 's'what I thought," Draco was trying very, very hard at coming across as totally laid back and unfussed, as though he routinely solicited sex from attractive co-workers. "Pretty fair, right? So, er—I wouldn't be averse to doing it again. Sometime."

Draco hadn't actually been breathing at that point, though he gave an excellent impression of it, filling his parched mouth with his own coffee to prevent himself from blurting out far too much, far too soon.

"Well, alright," Potter's quicksilver smile flashed across his face, lighting it from within, and Draco still didn't inhale or exhale. "Yeah, I guess. If, er--_you _want?"

"…Yeah--_yes_," Draco replied after a fractional pause, remembering to swallow correctly so as not to choke, and then tapping his chin with a meditative fingertip as if he were actually considering his crowded social schedule.

"Ah, perhaps this weekend?" That wasn't soon enough to suit him, by no means, but this was Potter. He'd had to be very cagey and subtle, but not too subtle, or Potter wouldn't twig.

"Yes, alright. Sounds like that'll work—Owl me, then, would you?"

Draco nodded and slid off Weasel's desk with alacrity, preparing to beat feet before Potter changed his mercurial mind and thought better of the whole plan. He'd gotten what he came for; no sense lingering.

"Yes," he'd said simply, and then as if he'd just remembered he'd need it, "your Floo address?"

"Oh, yeah—here." Potter scrawled a line on a used yellow stickum parchment scrap and handed it over, just like that. He grinned again, and Draco thought he'd swoon with a heady combination of lightheadedness and lust.

"Never thought that'd happen, did you?" Potter chuckled, and looked a bit amazed. "Me and you, shagging, I mean? I almost thought it was a dream or something like, after."

"No—er, yes, actually," Draco didn't know quite what to say to that. He'd known what he'd wanted, had truly dreamt of, had desired for year upon year, but the reality of it—even smudged with copious alcohol—had never prepared him for this kind of relentless hunger. He'd only vaguely craved before; now he required, and he'd had to escape Potter's office before Potter clued in on that salient fact and thought him some sort of aberrant stalker.

"I mean to say, it was certainly a surprise—in a good way, naturally." Draco swallowed harder—his throat was really very dry—and edged over to the doorway. "I, um, look forward to doing it again. Soon. Potter."

He'd had to vacate; he'd felt the beginnings of a full-body blush that was sure to be a dead giveaway of his discomposure.

"Oy, Draco!" Potter's voice followed him out into the corridor and Draco stopped in his tracks at the sound of his first name tripping off those lips. It'd been four days, nine hours and plus or minus ten minutes since he'd heard it for the first—and last—time. It had the power to send him to his knees right there in public and if Potter puzzled that out, Draco was dead meat.

"Hey--thanks for the coffee, mate. Nice of you to think of it."

"Yes, yes. I'll Owl you." Draco sucked in a breath finally, first in ages. Desperately, he prayed no one was witnessing his reaction: his emptied disposable coffee cup crushed by one hand clenching; the trail of dampness on the wall where his other—terribly--sweaty palm left a smear; his sharp-cut lips twisting with a manic grin of mingled exultation and fear. "Later, Po-_Harry_."

Sweetpea, in memory of New Year's Eve.

Viscaria: 'Will you dance with me?' he'd asked, so terribly afraid of the crushing power of Potter's reply. And now—five months after—Draco had nurtured a happiness of sorts—stock and pansies, sweet marjoram and heather, and even dandelions, sunny-bright and lion-maned—all about him, in fragile bloom. The scent of the Garden was intoxicating, as Harry was, and Draco desired only that it surround his senses for the rest of his life.

_Sources for flower and herb meanings used: __.__ and __.com/tips__

*

Draco wasn't sure which was better: _in_ Potter or _around _Potter. He knew he couldn't for the life of him think of Harry as merely 'Potter' when it was one of those increasingly rare times he was in that position of being _in_ or _around_. Only as 'Harry' and likely he cried it out, as well, forgetting himself in the moments of take or be taken. It was only a matter of time before Potter truly noticed Draco's utter lack of poise at those moments and then Draco daren't guess where they might go after that.

Tonight was an 'in' night, and they'd Side-Alonged to Harry's flat after a quick supper at a Muggle restaurant. No Wizarding establishments for them; Auror regulations wouldn't allow it. And Potter—well, suffice to say that Potter likely didn't wish the world to know he shagged people like Malfoy, no matter how attractive. Not that Malfoys were all that reviled: Galleons still spoke a language everyone understood, and people had short memories. Draco was an Auror, too, and visibly attempting to make good on his forebear's errors. He'd been vetted and acquitted via the mechanism of the 'Great Harry Potter's Popularity', a process he liked to think of as an actual entity; his mother commended by the Ministry; his father exiled from Britain for his sins; and he the sole remaining Malfoy in Great Britain, the token converted black sheep returned the fold of the Light.

Draco was thinking of none of those things as he pushed his cock into Harry, hard and fast, the way Harry liked it. He was thinking of flowers and how he wished it would go on forever, this feeling of being consumed, and of the way they smelt together, and the heat they generated. He was feeling his balls gather sharply, and his breath shudder to a halt in his throat, clogging 'round all the words he mustn't say, and Harry's smooth flanks slipping under his damp fingertips—sweat, lube, Harry's ejaculate—and that Harry was so incredible, and that he was fathoms deep in love.

And after the moment ended, during the time of limbo where they lay partially insensate after orgasm, still touching at hip and shoulder, and Draco sometimes dared to kiss Harry's nape, he thought of how he'd like to have Harry come home to the Manor with him, and give him some real memories there to wank to, or perhaps walk one fine morning down the flagstones Draco had carefully set through Harry's namesake garden and exclaim with him over the scent and the beauty.

And when he stood at the door, very late that evening, Harry—Potter—looking up at him sleepily, Draco protesting feebly that he could see himself out, really, and that Potter mustn't bother, Draco wished for Harry to call him back for a third round—keep him there in Harry's cramped, messy bachelor's flat for an undetermined while longer, so that Draco might.

Might—what? Draco Apparated home on that haunting thought, unwilling to finish it. He'd spent too many lonely moments crying over Potter as it stood; why ask for yet more heartache? They had this, and this was enough.

He'd told himself that so often, it was practically a motto. Words to live by, as he'd once upon a time lived for revenge on this same Potter.

The next morning—a Friday, as it happened--Draco was informed he'd be off on the Euro Embassy Tour as of the following Monday. A month would be spent overseas, all in all, as it was every year, visiting various British Wizarding diplomatic enclaves and ensuring the efficacy of their wards and associated charms and spells. And Draco had been the Auror of choice for this post for the last three years, nearly from whence he started in Aurors proper as a full-fledged agent, first for his facility with foreign languages and customs, then secondly for his proper aristocratic upbringing, as the Ambassadors were always snobs, and thirdly, to get him out from underfoot of the rest of the usual lot, who didn't really like him all that much, even now. Oh, the secretaries did, and a fair portion of Admin, but the Aurors were a suspicious herd, and Draco was a Malfoy.

But this year was different, and Draco knew it, as he knew that cold, sinking feeling of dread in his gut all too well. Hermione Granger-Weasley was in charge of assignments and this particular one was a full month before schedule, and it was that way simply to remove Draco from Harry, for Harry's own good.

Always 'that foul, loathsome git Malfoy', he was, and never changing, at least to some people. And he didn't have the opportunity to wish Harry goodbye. Harry had been posted off in Scotland very early that morning, to teach a DADA seminar at Hogwarts for the remainder of the coming week, for community service.

Draco hadn't thought she'd be quite that cruel to him, but then he couldn't blame her, really. War was hell.

*

He bought presents whilst gadding about the Embassies, scads of them, trinkets and 'real' gifts, worthy of the loved one of a Malfoy. Blown glass in Venice, fine sculpture in Rome, an exceptionally accurate mechanical Muggle pocket watch in Munich. All for Harry, though he wasn't sure he'd muster up the temerity to give them, when he finally returned to English shores. He bought seeds, as well, and cuttings, bulbs and corms and tomes in foreign languages about their care and feeding, and had all that forwarded to the Manor for planting and perusing later.

And he worked his bloody arse off, pushing himself, cramming in twice as much detail work in a day as he possibly could, till gradually the time required to complete his task grew noticeably shorter. He was five days before schedule when he opened his eyes in the British Hub at Heathrow and literally starving to death for the gladsome sight of Potter, Harry.

Who met him there, oddly enough. And that was not a good thing, Draco knew, though he desperately tried to ignore his intuition. Seers, some of the Blacks, and his illustrious French forebears as well—they'd not gotten quite so powerful and wealthy by sheer luck, had they?

This night was 'special', just as Draco feared. He lay on his back and Potter—Harry—loved him, in all the ways he could. Worshipped him with his lingering mouth, and adored him with his cock, strong and sure and swift within Draco, and lauded him silently with eyes so brilliant they ensorcelled.

'Draco," Harry murmured, "Oh, Draco," and Draco knew it was over, and that he'd go back to being 'Malfoy' by morning.

Over an unexpected offer of tea, at one in the morning, Harry released him, eyes downcast and his lips still reddened from Draco's kisses.

"Look, I think—gods, this _is_ hard, isn't it?" and Draco nearly died on behalf of Harry's fumbling efforts. He knew how to do this instinctively and he'd only ever broken up with three people. "It's just, I don't think—I don't think we're after the same sorts of things, Draco. It's probably best…"

Draco refused to make it easy. He sipped at his steaming cup and waited for the remainder of the nails to pierce through.

"For both of us, really. You see that, don't you?"

Harry seemed to really want to hear Draco's confirmation. But Draco only stared, his sullen grey gaze level, and tried to remember his flowers—Harry's flowers. What were the herbs for healing amorphous pipedreams, shattered? What potion could he mix quickly that would allow his exhausted body much-needed rest when his very soul only wanted to rail against this—drag his pleasurably achy body straight up out of Potter's kitchen chair and scream aloud his anguish? Was there a way to combine plant ingredients such that Harry would continue to desire him? Did any one of the numerous blooms in Harry's Garden contain enough poison to rid the world of Oliver Wood or whomever it was Harry was shagging in Draco's place—had been shagging, since perhaps before Draco had even gone off all those weeks ago?

"I mean to say, this is really difficult, isn't it, what with our jobs and—and stuff." Potter was fumbling, but the message was all too clear.

Draco hadn't expected 'forever'. He wasn't a numbskull and Harry had a bit of reputation, in a nice way, a 'Golden Boy' way, of being a bit of a butterfly. He flitted from one person to the next, never landing, never really damaging whoever it was that interested him or was interested, but not settling, either. 'No harm, no foul', was Potter's way. But he _was_ inconstant, or rather, he sought some quality undefined that his various lovers or seriously heavy dates never seemed to possess. Draco hadn't ever managed to talk himself into truly believing he was any more worthy than the rest—there weren't _that_ many; Potter was no slag—or that Harry would find him so. But he was more than good enough in bed to be worth keeping on tap, and he did go out of his way to bend himself around the rules and fall in with Potter's off-hand invites whenever they came. He wasn't clingy and he didn't demand notoriety, or gifts, or even reassurances of his own importance. Very low maintenance, considering, given his upbringing.

"I just think—I just think we'd be better off spending some time apart, Draco. I'm sure, when you have half a chance to consider it, you'll agree. We hardly ever see one another as it is, right? And we can still be mates—you know, hang out, meet up for a beer or a meal after work, right? I _do_ like spending time with you, Draco."

There was nothing even remotely 'right' about Draco Malfoy's life, not at that moment.


	2. Chapter 2

**HP Not Impressed Part 1 ½ **

Draco reported to work in the morning, because, of all things, he was not a _coward_. Frightened, yes, and reasonably so, of the things one should be terrified of: undead Wizard madmen, lightning, undetectable poisons or hexes, losing his parents to age or accident. Losing Harry Potter to a stupid, pointless death: the intrinsically precious git who'd lived a very charmed life thus far, and was a natural-born risk-taker.

Draco went in to work at the usual time, with the usual vendor cup of java, black, and the usual croissant, toasted, for tea break, as he'd nothing else to do that was productive, mindlessly active, nor would enable him to continue functioning in a world as gravel grey and pockmarked as the purported surface of the Moon. And, if he'd stayed home at the Manor, he'd likely rip the roots from Harry's Garden in his angry despair, and Incendio them, and sow salt in his planting beds. He'd need its dubious comfort later, perhaps, if he ever managed to arrive at a place where he could be comforted.

True to his word, Harry—now probably 'Potter', and always to remain so—wished him a cheery 'Good morning!' and spent a few minutes chatting socially during the morning briefing. The Weasel looked on impassively, and Draco did the best he could to appear at-ease, coolly friendly and un-devastated. He'd practice, naturally, and specifically with Potter, so it wasn't as difficult as he'd thought it would be, four hours before, collapsed to the marbled floor of the Manor's entryway, strained back propped to the comforting mass of the wooden doors, with the elves bustling about him. He'd sat there for bloody ages, his hands splayed limply on the hardwood and his knees sagging wide, feet flat on the cold shiny surface, simply staring, staring.

Eventually, he'd laughed—there was nothing for it. He'd laughed, a high, strange whinnying noise that had definite overtones of a fox brought to bay, and which degenerated eventually into a guttural bellyrumbler that left Draco nauseous and queasy. It ended at least in sneezy, choking giggles that lacked mirth entirely, a gasping, pained sound that was so far from the realm of amusement, it couldn't properly be termed a laugh at all.

He'd been dry-eyed—truly, his eyes had felt as though they'd been scrubbed raw with sandpaper—and dry-eyed ever since. Couldn't bring himself to blink properly last night—this morning—nor catch his breath as the elves became increasingly urgent as to how they might assist him properly.

They'd coaxed him up, after a bit, his long legs rubbery beneath him, and fetched a Dreamless Sleep draught as Draco toiled up the main stairwell, bowed over like a Wizard of one hundred-and-eighty, clutching the polished banister as though it were a lifeline. Had hovered in Draco's bedroom, as was their wont, till he'd thanked them all politely and sent them off with the strict instructions to wake him at the usual hour for breakfast, and to water and care for Harry's Garden for the foreseeable future.

There was no chance in Hades he'd return to that forbidden bower willingly, certainly not whilst his pathetic hopes were still blooming with wild abandon, and if he could seal off the entire lot of riotous buds and petal-dripping perennials permanently without tearing it to pieces, he would. Oh, he so _would_.

*

He _had_ cried, admittedly; in the shower, mainly, where even preternaturally-eared house elves wouldn't hear. Not that there was anyone in the Manor who'd dare disturb his idiotic bawling if he shut himself up in the Study or Library or his Potions laboratory. There were Wizards, Witches and Squibs, of course, who made their various livings on the environs of the Manor: the Master of the Horse, Gilead Bransome, and his wife Sarah Anne and their appropriate lot of noisy children; the Manager of the Home Farm, Cressida Feeley and her Bonded partner, Amarantha Gaspère. Their two children were fully grown, and graduated from Hogwarts already and departed from the estate as well, though the ladies always had young interns from the Wizarding Ag College boarding in the Farm House and then there were the skilled subordinates—farm hands who dealt ably with the orchards and the dairy, the cows, sheep and bees—all housed in various smaller tenant cottages. There was old Master Eldrige Barkin, who functioned as the Estate Manager, and liaison with the other Malfoy holdings in Britain, shuffling supplies and products as needed, haggling the wholesale trade end on behalf of the Malfoy interests, monitoring rents, taxes and so forth. His son, Eldy the Third, was a Squib, but was, nonetheless, being groomed to take over when old Eldy retired. He'd do more than alright, Draco knew, despite having a bit of a handicap, and thus was happy enough to leave the bulk of the worrying about his land's fecundity and welfare to the Barkins.

Draco would miss the old man when the fabled retirement finally happened, but the Barkins didn't live in; no one did. Just Draco, who rattled 'round the Manor proper like a lone pea in an awfully large, well-appointed pod. But that didn't mean he'd not be caught out should he lose his composure in one of the more public spaces—no, it was far too risky. Pans might Floo into Draco's drawing room unexpectedly or Blaise, perhaps, or even Nott. He'd friends, still, of his own sort and they cared for him, in their own particular ways. But they were not persons he'd choose to reveal his weaknesses to, nor would they appreciate it, really. No one liked a perpetual whinger.

There'd been bouts of angry, painful sobbing before Potter dumped him—that one time three days after New Year's, just before he'd steeled his courage to confront Potter; the endless Saturday night in the dead end of last winter—February, it was--when it seemed Potter had no time to spare for him, nor ever would; and two days after the horrid Auror-sponsored Quidditch match, when he'd caught sight of Wood and Harry chatting amicably over dinner in the little Greek place he'd foolishly considered 'theirs'.

Draco despised crying: it defeated him. Clogged his nose and throat something awful, made any chance of reading a book after nigh impossible, gave him the sodding migraine and left him drained and exhausted--and ultimately feeling no better. His long-winded, much-recommended therapist had said to expect these unpleasant episodes; that they'd result in a great release of tension for Draco: a resolution of sorts, but then the man also believed it was lingering post-war difficulties Draco dealt with, and since he was the arsehole's patient solely at Pansy's bidding, Draco felt no need to disabuse him of the notion. The less said of what had really happened at the Manor during the Dark Lord's overlong stay, the better. Draco still balked at certain shadows, sometimes, and there were portraits and other family keepsakes consigned to the attics that were spelled to remain there until well after Draco's demise.

But Potter had driven him unwilling to tears, several times, all unknowingly. Soapy arms wrapped wet around his chest to hold himself together, forehead ground viciously into the grouted tile, he'd endured them, shaking with anguish-induced ague and letting the wicked trails of salt that scarred his complexion run away down the drain to the groundwater. Always biting his lower lip in a vain attempt to stifle himself till it frayed and bled profusely, salt to the salt, and cursing himself roundly for bothering.

No one should be able to exercise such terrible power over him—but someone did. No one should be allowed to blithely grant him grace one day and then revoke it the next, and not even realize it—but Potter did, on nearly a daily basis.

No single person should have such a profound effect on another if they couldn't be arsed to see to the consequences. Draco hated Potter passionately still, at times, simply for that, and had learnt over and over again that his ill-fated love was a burden that rivaled Atlas's.

Some mornings he wondered why he bothered to wake up.

*

Late summer was slowly inching into autumn.

"Draco!" Potter sang out on a crisp, clear day. "Oy, Draco!"

"Potter."

"I've barely seen you. Been keeping busy?"

"Oh, yes."

"Oh—hey, want an apple?" A bright green fruit was thrust out at him, the mate of the one Harry was munching. A juicy morsel, judging by the sticky juice still shiny on Potter's lips. Draco focused on proper respiration and nodded a 'thank you', accepting.

"Great! Er—" Potter began brightly enough as well, and then faltered.

They both held their respective apples in hand, awkward suddenly. What _did _one say to the person one used to shag up until fairly recently?

Draco took the rare opportunity to examine Potter closely. He'd taken great care to keep his distance since the break up and Granger-Weasley had unwittingly helped him immensely, assigning him and Nott to out-of-the-way cases and Muggle-related crimes. He'd spent a great deal of time covertly in London and its environs, and more before the Wizengamot, testifying concerning a Muggleborn-run illegal Potions lab.

Potter, too, had been occupied elsewhere: assigned to trace Draco's footsteps through the embassies and counter-test his upgraded wards and 'this year's model' anti-Magical terrorism spells. As a result, they'd very little contact through the summer as it drew to a close, and Draco had been duly grateful. He'd missed Potter something fierce, of course, but at the same time it tore him open, having that hair and those hands within reasonable reach at every Auror meeting they both attended; listening to that voice detailing Potter and Weasel's routine cases before others whilst he longed futilely hear Potter call out 'Oh, Draco!' just one more time; watching Harry's striking eyes dance with interest over every single person he spoke to, from the Minister of Magic to the lowest paid secretary, old Tom at the Leaky to 'new' Doug at the Gryphon. Draco wanted that fascinating gaze back on him, even as he feared it. He wasn't such a fine specimen, nowadays, and even a stupidly dense speccy git could likely tell he'd been thoroughly cast down in the dumps by something.

"Um," Harry bravely jumped into the gaping breach, and forged on, making conversation. "Well, how _are _you, Draco? Tell me."

Up close, Draco could see that Potter's famous eyes were also tired. Red-rimmed and with faint dark circles under them, despite his sprightly air. He wasn't any mussier than usual but he seemed a bit _off_ in a way Draco didn't understand. Perhaps a case had hit too close to home for him—the child abuse ones always did—or he'd simply been working far too much. They tended to take advantage of Potter, here in the Ministry.

It caused Draco's heart to swell with loving concern, elbowing aside utter misery in its rush to be heard. _Do something! _ Draco's chest screamed silently at his slow-moving brain. _Make it better!_ But Draco didn't know what. Every instinct urged him to sweep Potter away, coddle him, care for him, keep him. And he couldn't.

"Ah, um—" he stammered, scrambling for a safe topic that would allow him to pry, and anxious to get the spotlight off _him._ "Fine, really. How've _you _been keeping, Potter? Did you enjoy your ersatz tour of the Continent?"

"What, that? Doing my best Harry-the-Human-Fly imitation on crumbly old slate rooftops? Crawling through basements and manky closets and drainspouts? Oh, _yeah_, Draco—it was a blast, let me tell you, especially that one freakin' roof in Barcelona," but Potter grinned as he said it. "Height of August, that was. Dog Days. Fucking _hot_. Thanks ever so _much_, Hermione, for that one—sheesh! But I _did_ chat with a fair lot of your clients when I was touring around. They all blooming adored you, Draco, mending sodding squeaky hinges one minute and then sitting down to supper with them the next, all spit-and-polish, done up proper. You really did a fine job with that lot, mate--_really_. Not a pinhole in those places, not in any one of 'em—I _know_, believe me--I _checked_."

Draco allowed his lips to curl into a faint, pleased smile. He hadn't had a compliment of any sort from Potter in more months than he cared to count. They'd barely spoken, for that matter—just as Granger-Weasley intended.

"Thanks, Potter, but I am aware of my own competencies, of course. That's one part of this sorry Auroring business I _do _claim to understand thoroughly: protective wards. The Manor, naturally," he finished, in lieu of lengthy explanation.

"Heard you got hurt a while back," Potter abruptly changed the subject. A fretful little frown crinkled his faded scar into a scrunched-up backwards 'S'. Draco found this strangely adorable and had to haul himself back just as abruptly before he stuck out a curious fingertip to smooth it away. He liked Potter smiling. "You didn't mention it, much, in our meetings, you or Nott. Was it that Claiborne case—the Muggle drug ring bash up? You were out for a bit."

Strictly by chance, Draco had taken a hex that caused his internal organs to slowly liquefy. Nott had covered his back in a pitched spell sortie just a split-second too late, through no fault of his own. Two days in St. Mungo's and Draco was right as rain again, and much the better overall for the forced nutrition and the potent prescriptive sleeping potions.

"No big deal," he shrugged it off easily. The Healers hadn't asked questions, but they'd left pamphlets on clinical depression at strategic places 'round his room. "Old news, in fact. I heard _you_—"

"No," Potter cut him off, glancing away. "We're not doing this, Draco."

"What?" Gut reaction to rejection made his chin rise, a move harking back to their Hogwarts days. Draco's formidable hackles went up, all unbidden. "What exactly do you mean, Potter?"

"Trying to have a decent conversation _here_, of all places," Harry replied easily. He cocked his head, shrugging at the bustle of Ministry staff swarming about them, off home or wherever after a day's toil. "It's the bloody Atrium, damn it! Come and have a drink with me, Draco. I know this new place—"

"Look, Po—Harry. I really don't—"

"Come on, please? You never do anymore. Fucking have to drag your sorry arse out of that cubicle you and Nott call home, every single time. Please, Draco?"

Like Draco could resist _that_? Not.

"I miss you," Harry added, and let his fingers rest lightly on Draco's scarlet-robed shoulder. Draco kept his clenched hand away from his thundering chest mainly by sheer willpower. He'd have ripped out the organ that twisted there without a second's notice if it meant Potter wouldn't sound so very…dispirited. But hearts didn't make for such good gifts, he'd found.

Draco nodded jerkily instead, and went off to the new place with Potter with no further demur. As if there were ever any choice about it.

*

By October, the incessant pain of loss had settled into a dull, throbbing ache. Draco didn't believe for a moment he'd ever be free of it, but it was bearable enough, he supposed. He was growing gradually inured to tripping over Potter more and more often about the confines of the Ministry, and Potter insisted on being terribly, horribly 'friendly'.

It wasn't so bad, really. Draco had admired Harry before, from afar. Had desired him, from a distance. Had craved his approval, his company and his attention, forever and a day, true, but there'd never been the opportunity to actually get to know him all that well, what with the war, and the poor footing they'd started off with. It took an immense amount of self-control on his part—the desire had certainly not abated with time—but they could manage very civil, even quite familiar, exchanges, albeit under the watchful eyes of Weasel, Thomas and the rest. Even Granger-Weasley had unbent a bit, though she never much smiled much at his frightfully witty jests nor really looked Draco straight in the eye.

On a bright--and rather ridiculous—note, Draco's unwished for therapist pronounced him a survivor. "You're a survivor, Mr. Malfoy," he'd said, using those words exactly, "and whatever it is you're hiding so deeply, you'll get through it. You are far stronger than you think you are."

Lovely, Draco acknowledged, rueful but still reluctantly pleased. That didn't stop the incessant wanking, or the fevered dreams of Harry's arms about him, or the tears that would trickle down his set face unannounced when he least expected it. It did nothing for his raging libido, or his ghastly desire to murder Wood and anyone else who ventured too close to Potter, nor did it alleviate the inexplicable guilt he felt over his undying infatuation, nor soothe his battered pride.

Draco avoided his Harry Garden like the plague. He hadn't set foot there since the day he'd left for the embassy tour, in June. Likely all the mint varieties had gone to seed, and there were thistle tufts in every crevice of the slate flagstones, and likely, too, the elves had pulled up his prized yarrow and catnip, thinking they were mere weeds for the composting rubbish. Same as the presents for Potter he'd purchased, now tucked away, still shrunken, on the back shelf of Draco's capacious wardrobe, the Garden remained in stasis in Draco's recent memory. There was far too much time of his invested in the soil, the roots; entirely too much wasted emotion planted within its boundaries for him to be comfortable, going back.

If Draco let himself dwell at all on the first half of the year, even for an instant, he couldn't speak comfortably with this new, matey Potter. He couldn't go on, simply existing, day-to-day. And Potter seemed determined to be become best mates with Draco, on the grand order of Weasel and Granger-Weasley, strangely enough. Malfoy-the-Ex-Shag was being slowly wheedled into being Draco-the-Confidante by a determined, charming, all-too-seductively touchy-feely Potter. Draco didn't fall into that beguiling mirage of bro'mance all that willingly. Or so he told himself, and then jumped like a shot at every stray invitation that came his way.

"Draco," Potter mentioned one fine autumn day, after they'd all spent hours in a hand-to-hand combat seminar, "I've tickets for this Saturday's match between the Arrows and the Cannons. Wanna come with?"

"Sure," Draco had replied, and thought nothing of it. They were comfortable enough, now. He'd buried his stupid hopes pretty thoroughly, over time. And he'd heard nothing further of any goings-on between Wood and Harry–in fact, Potter had very carefully avoided mentioning any other potential love interests in any of their many conversations.

There had been those. Some in the company of other Aurors, out in a gaggly group to drink off the accumulated frustration and disgust of another week of work with the various dregs and warts of Wizarding humanity; others far more intimate, just him and Potter, knocking wands and griping over Scotch and lager at the Gryphon in Hogsmeade.

They'd discussed the war, and subsequent reparations; Draco's parents—a very uncomfortable, Scotch-fueled discussion that had been—the pitfalls and highlights of the department; and their prospective careers in the Aurors. They'd covered death and destruction, the 'good old days' of inter-House sniping and oneupmanship, the various efforts by the Ministry to mend fences between Purebloods and Muggleborns, sometimes to such a degree it resulted in over-compensation, and then Harry's favorite topic of all: the need to set in place some sort of monitoring system to prevent abuse of Muggleborn Wizardlings. Harry had maundered on at length of Grimmauld House and his plans to move back one day and remodel. He'd missed the privacy afforded by the Fidelius, it seemed, and Draco spared a twinge to the fact the carefully kept scrap of paper with Potter's Floo address would be rendered meaningless if the git followed through on his scheme. Draco told Harry firmly the Manor was his home, despite all that had happened there, and thus he needed to stay, no matter what.

But of love, they spoke not. Nor of desire, nor lust, nor even passing romances or one-offs. Draco had none to speak of, other than Harry, so that was all to the greater good. He didn't have to pretend to fool Potter he'd well and truly moved on. Potter was simply terribly close-mouthed by nature, and understandably so, given all the Press and public interest. He'd never mentioned his other lovers to Draco before, when they were still an item, so why would that change now?

All went swimmingly, except that Draco wanted Potter happy. The conviction was growing within him that Potter was not. Draco didn't like that; couldn't stand it. Such a good man, Harry, a very fine man, and there was no one to care whether he'd returned to his flat safely at the close of the day or whether he'd managed to consume proper meals on some sort of reasonable schedule. Potter had only newspaper headlines and his all-consuming post in Aurors. At least Draco had his faithful house elves. And a raft of beautiful memories he couldn't bear to touch.

"Good game, yeah?" Potter nudged him at the end of it, exultant over a surprise score on the part of Chudley. They hadn't upset Portree by any means, but at least the Weasel's most favoured team was still in the running, cumulative points-wise.

"Yes, I suppose," Draco allowed, though he'd enjoyed the match immensely. Portree's Seeker was bloody excellent and he'd followed every second of the hard-fought battle avidly. "Listen, shall we grab a bite?"

"Sure," Potter answered readily enough, and they debated ethnic food merits for fifteen minutes before flipping a coin, and then the Cannons' chances in the remainder of the season all during the meal of wasabi-dipped ahi and Dragon handrolls at the local sushi bar. Draco discreetly noted Potter had moved on to Japanese cuisine from the Greek, and silently blessed his innate skill with chopsticks. Wouldn't want to come off as a ruddy ham-fisted twat or anything, dropping rice grains in his lap, least not before Potter. 

_NB: The next-and last-bits to be posted come in two flavours: 'sappy' and 'non-sappy'. Conversely, both are 'happy endings' of sorts, dependent upon the definition you have of such things. One is EWE and the other is not; one is Major Character Death and the other is not, and one will hopefully require Kleenex and the other will not. Your choice, one or both. _


	3. Chapter 3

**HP 'Not Impressed' Part 2**

"You need to get out more, Potter," Draco was doing his level best to chivvy Potter in the preferred direction, but with little success. They'd been talking up the recent rash of holiday-oriented parties and whom they'd met there, together and singly.

"What about that nice Witch you chatted up last week at Looney's—Samantha, was it? Amelia Something? She wasn't particularly painful on the eyes—and you fancied her, Harry--I watched you. Or that new stud in DOM—now, _he's_ more like it. Gorgeous arse on that one. Grant, I think the name was."

"Um…" Harry sipped his beer and shrugged a bit, patently not interested. Draco huffed faintly, irked.

Draco had discovered he'd developed a disturbing affinity for Ron Weasley. Potter, however effective a Wizard and an Auror, could be a right Merlin-forsaken peckerhead if left entirely to his own devices. No wonder the Weaselbee and his lady wife watched over Potter like bloody broody hens. The new, improved Draco, aka 'close, personal friend of Harry's', could relate. Potter was practically anti-social these days, living for his job.

The utter irony of the situation he found himself in certainly didn't escape Draco, though, even if he was still hideously jealous enough to snap necks left and right. True intimacy came in so many flavours, and the brand he'd forged with Potter was a very rare vintage, not tasted by many. Draco would lay odds Wood hadn't had it.

But in a horrible way, he felt he owed Harry this. Someone had to be arsed to keep the halfwit on track, re life events and the importance of them. Harry needed it, far more even than Draco.

Perhaps the Weasley girl, though, and Harry had been making some odd comments lately; ones that made Draco's ears perk up in subtle interest. He knew, of course, that Potter didn't think of _him_ that way—he remembered every stumbling syllable of Harry's horribly uncomfortable 'dumping-of-Draco-Malfoy' speech; could recite it by heart, even now—but no man was an utter island, nor should be. They'd an obligation to the future, he and Potter.

Look to him, a perfect example of going about things the wrong way. He should've resigned from Aurors ages ago and taken all the steps necessary to oust all memories and reminders of Harry Potter from his life, simply for his own sanity. Yet he had not. Far from it; he interacted with Harry far more often now than he had when they'd been shagging. It really was terribly, terribly ironic.

"About young Ginevra, then, Harry," and that was it, the pivotal moment that he harked back to years and years later, nodding to Potter amiably at the Hogwarts platform when they ushered off their children; misty-eyed and attending the Bonding ceremony of his only son Scorpius to Harry's middle-child lookalike, Albus Severus Potter; fussing pickily over all the niggly details of Harry's fiftieth birthday do in the company of that same Weasley female whilst she battled the final stages of cancer, the horrid illness that killed her less six months later, despite all the wonders magic could do and all the Healers' expertise on seven continents. For all that he'd hated Ginny Potter—envied her—Draco missed her, too. Stupid ginger bint, leaving Potter alone like that. They'd a bond, she and he, and the bitch had let him down as surely as she had Harry, dying.

There were some things that were inevitable, or so Draco came to believe as he grew older. Dark being the opposite of Light; Yin attracted to Yang. Potter had looked again at the Weasleyette one fine day and found 'true love'. Draco had turned away, because he couldn't bear to watch that closely, and then bore the resultant aftermath and flurry from Potter unprotesting, his pointy chin ducked and his head bowed, defeated. He'd had his chance already and blown it. Some things really were inevitable.

There'd been a subtle change come over Harry at her very mention, and Draco had known it, as surely as he knew his sun was on the verge of clouding over, and shining only hazily on him through gauzy layers of confusing, bittersweet fog. A physical pang had rung through him, soundless, and signifying yet another end.

But perhaps all was not lost with this particular go-round at having a relationship with Harry Potter. Perhaps it was but another way of beginning again, friendship—an even exchange for Draco's stupidly steadfast heart. A friend was vastly different from an ex-lover, after all, especially a scorned, stupidly jealous one, and Harry was both sincere and dreadfully, awkwardly honest when it came to how he was feeling—if he trusted a person, that is. Potter was an utter prat, but Draco had since lost the sickly suspicion that Harry was just taking the piss, cozying up to him. Certainly, he'd been yet another flower Potter had alighted upon in the midst of his meandering search for whatever—_whom_ever—had been missing in his life, but mayhap Weasel and Granger-Weasley had the right of it, this time.

Perhaps they'd been in the same position as Draco, only long ago, whilst they were all still mere children safe in the confines of Hogwarts, and love as such was forgivable. Perhaps if he'd the opportunity to be one of Harry's intimates _then_, he wouldn't've suffered to such a degree _later_. There wasn't much difference, from what Draco could discern, between how he felt for Potter these days and how Potter's two best mates felt. Harry was irreplaceable for them; they'd die for him in a heartbeat, and he for them. Draco wasn't alone at all, at least not in this aspect, and perhaps, just maybe, that unspoken camaraderie made the never-ending yearning a little bit better.

In the spirit of that—and of 'surviving'—he'd dug out the silly Muggle St. Christopher's medal, the tiny winged sandal of Hermes, and the collection of beaded, feathered, knotted string bracelets Harry had given him so long ago. The scrap of paper with Harry's Floo address, and the German-made pocket watch he'd hoped to present himself to Harry, still shrunken to the size of a doll's plaything. With a certain delight in his own meticulous wand strokes, Draco spent the wee hours after Potter told him of his engagement to render those precious items of his all that much more miniscule, and placed them carefully in a tiny red velvet drawstring pouch, suitable for carrying discreetly about in one's robe pocket.

This would be his new Garden.

And, at the last moment, just before he sought his Potterless bed, Draco gathered up his Shasta daisy, the very progenitor of Harry's Garden, charmed ages ago to stay ever-fresh and vibrant on his nightstand, but a little frayed on the stem end from where he'd held it for sniffing a time too many, and spelled it again with a clear, protective casing, and miniaturized it to resemble a perfect confection of a precious reliquary. The stem and leaves were of smooth-rubbed emerald, green as could be, the colour of Spring, of hope, of secrets; and the pure white petals were of pearl, gleaming milk-satin, with a endlessly deep center of dusky amethyst topaz.

There it was, then: Draco's personal ward. His good luck charm, and bits and pieces of the sun that still burnt bright and fierce within him. He'd carry on, as his forebears had, through all coming adversity and discover a workable way to bring life back to his bleak Manor, and some measure of comfort to himself. He'd be a very good friend indeed to Potter, and watch over the silly, priceless prat from a distance, and allow himself the pleasure of a Scotch at the Gryphon with Harry on a weekly set schedule. Come what may, Draco was ready—at last—to step forward.

*

In time, Draco moved on to the Diplomatic Corps, where he was more suited. Potter became Head Auror. They Owled frequently, even when Draco was overseas, and even when Potter's duties were overwhelming. They met up for that drink at the Gryphon when they were able, and discussed the minutiae of Life, Family and the Wizarding World they'd each managed to change in their various ways.

Not so bad, really. The hole in Draco's chest was always a little larger than what filled it, and the wicked raptor of desire never quite released its taloned grip on his entrails, but Astoria and he had an agreement and physical release could be found in any number of places. And Potter was, for all intents and purposes, happily married and mostly straight.

*

Not twenty years after his beloved wife Ginevra Potter, née Weasley, passed on from this mortal coil, Harry Potter followed, a beloved father and grandfather and godfather. He'd been many things to many people—Saviour, Head Auror, Minister of Magic; enemy, Horcrux, and weakness—but no one ever dared question his utter and crucial importance to the world of Wizardry.

Draco Malfoy, caught alone in his most favoured garden at the dawn of a new morning, staggered a bit when the house elf brought him the special editions of the _Prophet_ and the _Quibbler _along with his usual tea tray, and went dead white to his fingertips, and had to seek stumbling refuge on one of the benches he'd installed ages ago, under the grove of Hawthorne trees. Owls from all directions began arriving at the Manor very shortly after, as well as his son and son-in-law in person, and Draco was gathered up tenderly into the bosom of the sprawling, all interconnected Potter-Malfoy-Weasley-Boot-Longbottom-and-so-on families, and monitored with hawk-like severity over the next several days by his son and son-in-law, his old mates and a great number of his nearest and dearest, Astoria Malfoy included, for all who knew him at all knew how close they'd been, he and Potter. Such very good friends—like brothers.

Harry Potter had died alone in his weekend cottage at Godric's Hollow, peacefully in his sleep, his stout heart failing literally decades before it could reasonably be expected. Because of this, the papers blared, foul play was instantly suspected. And dismissed, upon further investigation by a crack Auror squad and a magical autopsy led by the best Wizarding pathologist in St. Mungo's.

"Suddenly, last night…" read the _Quibbler_, edged in funereal black and a deep, dark green, the exact colour of Harry Potter's eyes.

"With great sadness, we regret to inform you…" trumpeted the _Prophet_, also in mourning, judging by the number of sobbing Wizarding photos, and teary-eyed interviewees.

Potter, the institution. Potter, the most powerful Wizard ever. Potter, who due to residual spell damage, early deprivation and an over-rapid metabolism and congenital heart defects inherited from his doomed Muggleborn mother, had gone without so much as a whimper beyond the reach of anyone living.

The Lord of Malfoy Manor aged immeasurably, almost in that one endless day that followed. His hair, always a blond so light as to be white, turned a dulled silver grey, and lay lank on his sleek skull. His eyes lost their sparkle of sly amusement, and darkened to reflect the endless abyss he'd been cast into.

How could the flowers bloom if there was no longer a Harry? Where, now, could Draco seek his sun?

They'd plans to attend the upcoming World Cup, only a month forward, and the TriWizard, set for half a year away at Beauxbatons, he and Harry. They'd Owls yet to send to each other: amusing messages about Astoria's new predilection for knitting, what Lily was getting up to in Paris, whether Al and Scorp would go ahead with that next grandchild they so often threatened to present to their fond papas with for spoiling. They'd planned to attend the Ministry New Year's Eve bash together, along with Thomas, Ron and Hermione, and Nev. He was planning to entertain Potter at dinner the coming week, and Astoria was already deep in menu planning, as she and Harry had a long-standing joke about the weird foods he'd eat on a dare. Fricassee of flobberworm and chocolate-covered fire ants Tory had been nattering on about, Draco recalled, but now—but now they wouldn't be eaten.

The weekly visit to the Galumphing Gryphon would never occur again. 'New' Doug had been replaced his son, 'Dougie Junior', but the dark, intimate atmosphere was the same, and he'd thought of a whole lot of new gossip to relate, and new insults, and found an annoying Muggle acrostic to puzzle over together. They were set to going flying on Wednesday evening next—Potter wouldn't be showing. Draco wouldn't be receiving the odd midnight Owl about various takes on unsolvable crimes—Harry was always, _always_ an Auror, the sod—or the occasional packet of rare seeds procured through mysterious sources for Draco's beloved Garden, the iron-gated, sun-filled place all the multitudinous children and grandchildren referred to as 'Papa's Secret'.

The elves discovered Draco's body not even a full week later, lips curled serenely on that same bench into the rising sun and sharp gaze seeing nothing, a worn velvet pouch in his lap, and a huge misshapen bouquet laid beside him, stems falling from the chilled, limp hand turned up and spread open to the balmy, bee-laden breeze. Draco Malfoy had died of nothing discernable, nothing tangible for a Healer to diagnose.

Astoria wailed like a banshee bereft over his cold body, for her husband was her very best friend in all the world and so terribly dear to her, and the family was disconsolate. An era had ended.

_But it was only fitting_, Al and Scorp whispered soggily to one another. _Only to be expected_, they repeated, tender fingertips rubbing mutual tears away in Scorpius' old childhood bed at the Manor, exchanging comfort as best they could in the face of this unspeakable double loss. Scorp's Mum had been sedated with potions and the second funeral in a week was already well into the planning stages. The Manor swarmed with masses of people, all come to grieve in company and give what aid they could, and share the burden.

_Only proper, and the way it should be, really_. Draco _would _follow his Harry.


	4. Chapter 4

**HP Not Impressed …the **_**Other **_**Part 2**

**HP Not Impressed …the **_**Other **_**Part 2**

"You need to get out more, you daft git."

Draco was doing his level best to chivvy Potter in the correct direction, but with little or no success. Stubborn arse, that Potter.

"Meh," Potter mumbled, or something that sounded rather like that, and betrayed no interest in pursuing this line of conversation. Draco frowned, and took on a quite determined air.

It was a brisk day, and 'determined' seemed appropriate, in a way. Certainly, there were rather a lot of determined teenagers on broomsticks zipping past.

"Alright, Potter, what about that looker you were snogging so avidly last week at Looney's party—Samantha, was it? No—wait! Ameliè! The Beauxbaton's bint--_she_ wasn't too, too painful on the eyes, not from what _I_ recall. Very generous bosom, she had. Or there's that new young stud in DoM, the one they've just hired—spectacular arse on him. Don't know his name, but he's fit little cocktease—and nice and ripe for the plucking."

Draco leered lasciviously, or tried to, but his sharp-angled face wasn't built for it, and when Potter peeped at him, he burst out laughing. _At_ Draco, of course.

"Shut it, dickweed," he barked, when Potter was still snorting a full minute later. "Watch the fucking match, why don't you? We've certainly paid for it!"

"Oh, now, Draco—you knew Professor McGonagall was going to touch us both for a sizeable donation. We're bloody alumni!"

"Right, well," Draco grumbled. "I still think a thousand Galleons _each_ is a bit much—"

"You can stand it," Potter smirked, "Barely make a dent in your monthly pocket change, Lord High-and-Mighty Malfoy. Get down off that fucking high horse of yours, why don't you?"

"Pah!" Draco bridled, miffed, and took a new interest in the doings of Slytherin, bashing bludgers between them in a concerted effort to deflect an ardent Gryff Chaser. "Not enough that I set up that bloody Trust for the bloody Muggleborns, nor rebuilt the damned dungeons with practically all my own money," he mutterly black, "not _enough_ that I forward a generous cheque every single bloody quarter—now she wants more, damn it! Bloody fecking vampire, she is!"

Losing interest his interest in winding up Draco and noticing the defensive action picking up on the Gryffindor end of the goalposts, Harry, too, turned back to the game, shrugging off the rest of Draco's barely-under-the-breath complaining as not worth the bother.

Draco, though he despaired of it, rather, had developed a disturbing affinity for Ron Weasley's view of the Matter of Potter. Potter, however effective a Wizard and an Auror he was, could be a right buggering Billywig beetle if left to his own miserably plebian devices. A giddy prat, he, utterly insane on the adrenaline of risk-taking, and with absofuckinglutely no concept of proper courting traditions and no grasp whatsoever of the intricacies of the polite world of the Wizarding aristocracy—and yet the git was still the hottest, brightest star to whiz through Wizardom in a very long while. The young lads and lassies of Wizarding's _haute monde_ gagged in bloody unison over Harry Potter—and his rapid rise in Auror ranks didn't hurt, either.

Potter's many 'pluses' required the use of nearly all one's digits, Draco fumed, simply to tick off one by one and keep reasonable track of. Potter was delightfully wealthy, and sinfully fit in a scarred, dangerous manner, and simply enormously powerful magically. He was bloody charming in his own excessively odd, Muggleborn way—all that yammer of tellies and autos and Tube stations, as if _they_ were the norm, Draco scoffed, and not Potter's normal work-a-day Wizarding reality. The list went on, though, _ad nauseum, _and Draco had it bloody well memorized by heart, sod it. When it came down to the wire, however, the plaguey bastard had absolutely no concept of what to do with a potential bride or groom other than the actual act of shagging. Admittedly, Harry _was _rather gifted in that aspect.

No wonder Weaselbee and his lady wife watched over Potter like bloody broody hens. Draco Malfoy, with his recently earned reputation as one of Potter's 'best mates from Hogwarts'—utterly _faux_ in actuality, of course, as they were never that, but certainly still impressive enough to boggle the younger Aurors—could relate and even empathize, even as he grumbled over the necessity of it. Potter really was a hopeless tosser, unless he was slamming down a few with his fellow Aurors or safe paddling within the strict confines of the social pool of those he'd known since childhood. Draco figured Potter was downright stunted, maladroit at the proven methods of acceptable acquisition of a lifemate. He'd no finesse, really, for a bloke who could've been sorted a Slytherin. For example, if Potter came across something he liked, he'd either fuss over it forever and then never touch it, or he'd simply help himself—no prisoners taken, no holds barred, and no questions asked till well after.

If Draco had realized even a smattering of Harry's true nature before he'd been handed his walking papers, perhaps things would've have turned out very differently between them—but it was far, far too late at this point. They'd somehow become bloody 'bestest' mates now, and the prat quite openly relied on Draco for his perpetually invirgorating companionship, for Salazar's sake! Draco, through some fiendishly Gryffindor sleight-of-hand, was rendered 'noble', of all things!--and could no more lay a salacious hand on Harry than he could on Pans, by buggering fuck!

Still, the utter irony of one Draco Malfoy encouraging one Harry Potter to be more of a social Seeker certainly didn't escape him. Bloody ridiculous, a Malfoy acting a society mentor of sorts to sodding Potter. He constantly bewailed the sad fact he'd taken on all the more simpering components of a Regency-era chaperone, damn it; escorting Potter herein and therein, to dos and soirees, and introducing the winsome prat to a surfeit of suitable young persons. But intimacy came in so many flavours, and the peculiar bond he'd forged with Harry over recent months was a quite rare one, not sampled by many. Draco would lay odds Wood hadn't ever gotten quite as deep as he had.

Gormless git was _lonely_, that's what. Draco understood that, and he didn't even claim to know Potter half as well as the other two of the Trio did!

Perhaps the Weasley girl, though—Ginevra, was it?—she might be of interest. Harry'd seen rather a lot of her lately. Attractive bint, for all she was a ruddy ginger, and Harry'd been making some odd comments, off-handed remarks that made Draco's ears perk up in subtle interest. Talk along the lines of how Grimmauld wouldn't be all that awful if he'd someone to help him fix it up, or how he'd thought Granger—er, Granger-_Weasley_—was rather tired of sorting him out date-wise for all those public occasions requiring his presence.

"Come on, Harry—tell me you've at least thought about it." No matter—Draco had his topic _du jour _to discuss and they'd damn well discuss it, whether Potter cared to or not. Only so many more opportunities before Harry was off the Burrow for Christmas hols, after all.

"They're _playing_, Malfoy," Harry replied, sharply. "Cut the chatter, will you?—_look_! See what your Beater's doing now? That's one of Goyle's old tricks! No--worse! Bet that's _your_ legacy, you pissant! Looks damn dirty enough to _me_." Draco did look--and was suitably impressed. Seems his time as Captain hadn't been completely forgotten.

"Oh! So he is. And yes—that's mine. See how he weaves back there in that little loop and than lobs it in an rising arc? Results in a concussion, every time." Pleased, Draco let himself be dragged back into the thick of it, but his over-active mind truly wasn't on the game.

Potter snorted again and shook his head sorrowfully over ages-past Slytherin infamy. "Knew it," he sniped. "Had your hallmark all over it, git."

Draco mulled instead of riposting, sulking that Potter stubbornly wouldn't rise to the bait he'd cast. He knew, of course, that Potter didn't think of _him_ romantically—he recalled every killing syllable of Harry's horribly uncomfortable 'dumping-Draco' speech; could recite it by rote, months on—but no man was meant to be an island. Harry needed someone in his life—he _did_. Draco was as certain of that as he was certain the sun rose every dawn, like celestial clockwork.

Harry was _unfinished_, like a house that couldn't truly be called a 'home' till a family took possession of it. Draco knew all about that, what with the utter dearth of living, breathing people in his own echoing domicile.

In fact, look to him, now, right this minute, sitting here budged up next to Potter on a hard wooden bench in the freezing cold, surrounding by screaming alumni, all cheering madly. He--the sole Syltherin present--was a perfect example of what one should _not_ do when dealing with an unrequited infatuation. To wit, Draco should've resigned from the Aurors ages ago and taken all the steps logically necessary to surgically remove Harry Potter from his life and environs, simply for his own continued sanity and best welfare. Yet he had _not_. Far from it, he saw Harry more often now than when they'd been regularly shagging. It was as if the Fates themselves were snickering at him—'always a bride's maid', the Muggle saying went, 'and never a bride'.

It made Draco want to sick up, some days. Made him fair cringe, others.

"Besides, I _am_ out," Harry protested, shifting his brilliant arse closer on the spectator benches, and perhaps finally rousting himself sufficiently to pay attention to Draco's repeated attempts at a certain subject. "Right now, in fact."

"Pish-tosh," Draco returned automatically, sneering 'round at the crowd and the fuss. "You're not. It's only Quidditch, prat. There's no one worthwhile to meet, here."

They shared a quilt Draco had thoughtfully brought with, striped a festive green-and-red for the holiday season. Slytherin Green _and _Gryffindor Red exactly, for sly compromise. Draco couldn't quite stop himself from edging nearer Potter's warmth just that millimeter or so, though he shouldn't.

"With _you_, you snotty git. Just us two."

Fucking Potter pheromones, Draco thought. But it _was_ cold, sod it.

And there was yet another of those damned tantalizing comments Harry had the habit of dropping, wherein he implied some form of intimacy they just didn't share and Draco's heart lodged thumping right beneath his glottis. He swallowed with some difficulty at his overactive, unrelenting fantasy life and attempted to concentrate instead on the crowd of apple-cheeked youngsters, all their hopes and dreams of the coveted House Cup writ large on their crisp uniform sleeves.

Heaven forefend, Draco reflected, that they be shed of that doe-eyed innocence too soon, as he had. He'd lost so much due to sheer circumstances, and was only just now beginning to make up for it.

"Yes, yes, I realize you're _out_, Potter, but it's hardly the same. It's only Hogwarts."

Without any warning, Harry laid his bare hand over Draco's gloved one, where it lay loosely curled on the striped blanket. The warming charms only did so much against the wind that whistled relentlessly through the alumni box seats at Hogwarts stadium. Thus the heavy woolen barrier and the hot thermos of Firewhiskey-laced hot cocoa for later, and the cashmere-lined mitts in Harry's size Draco happened to have lying spare in his pocket. Recalling them, he dug them out and wordlessly handed them over.

"No--hey, _thanks_," Harry said, with a nod of acceptance, and his smiling voice was odd again—overflowing with hidden laughter, and mischief, and all the blazing heat Draco was drawn to despite himself and everything awkward that passed between them. "No," he said again, "it's _different, _Draco."

"That's right, idiot, as I keep on telling you," Draco took refuge in bluster, stealing his hand back to wave it for emphasis. "It _is_! And you, Potter, need to be thinking of your _real_ future more than you do. The Granger-Weasley's, for Salazar's sake--_they've_ figured it out, at least. Procreating like bloody rabbits, those two. First one just popped and the next bun's likely in the oven, I'd wager. We'll all be overrun if we're not careful."

"Shut _up_, Draco, do," Potter whacked him hard on the shoulder, which only just brought his hotter-than-Hades form all that much closer. "You know you get on with Ron now. Even Hermione. And the last thing I want to do right now is discuss my non-existent love life!" Harry gave him a glare with no real fire in it and stuck his now covered paw back in Draco's lap, fumbling 'round for the one lying quiescent. Draco smirked...and shifted subtly into his _other_ neighbor's territory, purely in self-defense. Raging stiffies in public places were highly unacceptable.

Still, he drew a sharp breath and flushed faintly, his eyes cast down at his lap where their fingers meshed--they were hardly kids at this point, he and Potter, unfussed by pointless PDAs! They'd reputations to maintain and an amazing new friendship to foster! After a split-second pause, though, he curled the fingers of his Harry-warmed hand a bit tighter into Potter's quite deliberately, turning his wrist just so, that their pulses might beat side by side through the thin sheath of lambskin, a steady tattoo of blood rushing through young male bodies still stridently alive despite all the overwhelming odds against them. He was allowed this much, at least, Merlin help him! A spot of innocent hand-holding at a schoolyard match of aerial gymnastics held amongst mere toddlers would harm no one, not even him.

"I mean it," Harry muttered darkly, looking down at the blanket as well, and regarding what he saw there with feverish seriousness. "And you could at least pay attention for once instead of talking over me, Draco. Wouldn't hurt."

"Ridiculous!" Draco grimaced his disagreement, nonetheless, at his ever-annoying companion Potter, who'd switched to regarding _him_ quite seriously, though the rival Seekers were in a tip-over-tea-kettle skirmish for the Snitch right above Hufflepuff stand and Slytherin might very well take this, the last match between the two Houses before Christmas hols. He and Harry had bet on it pre-game, and a lavish bespoke meal at the Gryphon awaited them, with only one losing Wizard paying.

"Look, the thing is, I don't want you alone, Potter." Draco grabbed again at this opportune moment to lay into Harry and actually impress his logical conclusions on the fuzzy-minded git. He'd been biding his time for simply ages, saving up all his arguments for Potter to be sensible. Now seemed a very good time to air them all. "You're precisely the type that needs constant attention. Needy."

"Gee, thanks, Draco," Potter interjected wryly. "You make it sound like I'm a pet or--or someone's wayward child!"

"That's exactly it, Harry," Draco had warmed up to his theme, as Potter hadn't hexed him immediately. The git was notoriously touchy when it came to the subject of family. "_Children_—the buggering future of all Wizarding kind! Look, Harry--Teddy's already nearly eight years old. Little Rosie Weasley's off to Hogwarts in eleven years, eleven months, and then where will _you_ be? At the rate you're going, you'll end up all by your lonesome in that haunted manse of yours, same as yours truly. Awful, that," Draco sneered at the very thought. "We'll resemble each other to even more ridiculous degree if I allow it to happen. On second thought, it positively _can't_ be permitted. I won't have it."

"So?" Harry sounded sulky, and he shifted his keen green gaze back to the sky, eyes searching the lowering cumulus for signs of the now-parted rival Seekers, who'd zoomed off in opposite directions after their brangle. "What's it to you, Draco? It's _my_ life, you know. I should have the rule of it. As I keep telling you—_and_ Ron, _and_ Hermione--"

"What I _want_," Draco interrupted firmly, though he'd had to clear his throat a bit and he felt a bit of a sop, admitting this girly sentiment to Potter of all people, but Potter was that important to him, and it needed to be said aloud at least once in this lifetime, "is your _happiness_, Harry. Above all—_I _want that."

"Then why're you shoving me so hard at all these strangers, Draco?" Harry demanded hotly, and he was truly angered. Draco could tell—he knew every little sign of every passing 'Harry-mood', he did. "That silly little kid in Mysteries—come _on_, he's barely started shaving! It'd be illegal, me shagging him! You know what, Draco? Sometimes I honestly don't understand where you're coming from!"

Harry pouted, lifting his chin, and Draco gave his hand a little shake where it still lay, wrapped in his slightly larger one. The warming spell they shared was fading largely due to inattention, and the wind screamed and swept fangs of biting cold under the blanket they huddled under. He shivered, shrugging.

"Harry?"

"Your actions make no sense at all, Draco—and you're monstrously nosy, besides! Harry whinged, shaking his head and turning it sharply away in reproof. "And Ginny! Why the bloody fuck do you keep bringing _her_ name up? I mean, get a _grip_, Draco! She's practically family, damn it!"

"Because, of all the things you've ever wanted, Harry," Draco was totally reasonable about this, he was, but deathly determined withal, his voice low and steady in all the buffeting air, "you've needed a family the most. Someone to come home to—someone to care for, who cares for you. You've had it for a bit, or at least the promise of it—and don't tell me you didn't, 'cause I know all about Black being your godfather—you told me that yourself, Potter; don't deny it. And I realize you've the Weasley clan in your back pocket and there's droves and hordes of others—Looney and Neville Longbottom, the Griffindorks and all the rest of 'em—_you_ consider more than good enough. Well, _I_ don't! It's not enough—not by a long shot, Harry! You can't just blithely ignore what logically comes next and simply expect events to fall in order for you, Potter! Nature doesn't work that way, alright? You have to go find that special person, Harry—get off your fucking arse and _look_! No job's _that _important it should keep you from having a family and that's all you ever bloody do, these days—and Harry, there's so much more to life than just beavering away at case after case, day after fucking day. You have to live _sometime_, Harry. Make the bloody effort, at least. _I _am."

Draco was doing a yeoman's job, convincing Potter, or so he hoped he was, staring the git straight in the eye and laying it out whether Potter wanted to face up to facts or not. This _was_ how it was; precisely what Potter required, and Draco Malfoy, by Salazar, wouldn't step back from pointing that out, not even if Harry Potter despised him later for interfering and told him to bloody butt out. What else were frinds for?

"_Are _you?"

Harry huffed sharply, and deigned to glance Draco's way again. His dark eyebrows had winged up with a hint of wry humour to them and perhaps he wasn't quite so shirty as he'd been, though.

"Such a very good job you're making of it then, Malfoy. And did it ever once occur to you that I do indeed realize all that? I'm not completely a dunce, you berk."

"I'm not saying you're stupid, Potter. I'm _saying_—" Draco started doggedly enough but Harry cut him off, his tone cool and incisive.

"Look, give me some credit, will you? Acknowledge for just one time in your sodding swotting life that I'm well aware of what I'm doing, Draco, and whom I choose, and who I'm with? Because I _do _and I_ am_—even if it's not the way _you_ go about it, or Ron and Hermione, or _anyone_, really. It's _my_ way, Draco, and it works for me, alright? So leave me to it, will you? It won't phsyically hurt you to do that, you know—to let me be the one in charge. It doesn't always have to be your way or the highway, git."

"Oh, Potter!"

The warming charm had renewed, probably thanks to Harry, and Draco stretched his hunched spine subtly, and curved a mite closer, shielding Potter from the frigid air.

He'd ventured back into Harry's Garden just last weekend, to find that the elves had done it justice, after all. He'd planted Canterbury and bluebells—'constancy'--for spring colour and then cleared out the anemones—'forsaken'—to replace them with fennel and flax: 'worthy of all praise' and 'I feel your kindness'. He'd gathered the dried seedpods of his heliotrope, mugwort and melianthus for forcing seedlings in the greenhouses, come February next. Had requested the elves dig the deep holes needed for the young hawthorns--black and white—he'd chosen at the local nursery, and the green locusts, the boxwood yews and the cedars of Lebanon. They would ring Harry's Garden like a warded bulwark against the Wiltshire winters in the years to come, growing straight and tall and sheltering Draco when he strolled there, of a summer evening.

"Pfft!" Draco scoffed, undaunted. "You bloody idiot!"

There was just so much still left within Draco to give over to Harry yet—friendship, advice, honesty--and he wouldn't be backing down _now_. Not even if Potter said to.

"Tell me this then--if you're so bent on going about it your way, Harry, why're you wasting your time on silly games of Quidditch when you could be out and about with someone shagworthy? It's the fucking holidays, Harry! Time for parties and whatnot—time to get to know people! And there's plenty of them out there, believe me—they're practically tripping over themselves to get at you!"

Harry smiled that slow-blooming sunny grin of his, and Draco was caught up in it, as always, mouth watering, though he disguised his sudden lack of level-headedness with a black scowl.

"I am, Malfoy," the git replied, calmly, "doing exactly that and you're a bloody stupid wanker, Malfoy—and _look_! Over there! There's the Snitch again! See it!?"

"Shite!" Draco exclaimed and turned back to the game with renewed interest. "Oh! Fucking damn! There it goes again! They've both gone and missed it—tell me, how could they possibly _miss_ that!? It's right under their sodding noses! And your bleeding Gryffindors, Potter—she's nearly knocked our Seeker off his broom! Disgraceful! Where in Hade's Madame Hooch when you want her?!"

"Oh—sure!" Harry chortled, shaking his head again. "Just 'disgraceful', Malfoy—as if your side hasn't just sidelined one of ours with a bloody foul! Hah!"

"Shut up, shut up, shut _up_, Harry!" Draco shouted, leaning forward as the watching crowd went wild around them. "They're after it now, for real—_watch_! He's almost on her!"

"Fucking _Slytherins_!" Harry was on his feet, screaming—and Draco right next to him, shouting louder, as the Snitch hovered cruelly just above the hands of both desperate Seekers.

"_Bloody_ Gryffindors!"

Slytherin _had_ to win at least once this season, by Salazar, or he'd end up coughing up the necessary Galleons for their meal and all the pumpkin juice and ale that would accompany it—yet again!

*

*

The table to the back of the Ministry ballroom was once more their property, declared off-limits to any except the various Aurors of their certain age bracket and particular histories. It was familiar milieu for Draco now, and he another fish in the little pond that was Aurors, gradually growing more accustomed to his own kind. The biggest fish of all was, of course, Harry Potter.

Twelve months had passed since the occasion of the last New Year's Eve bash, and Draco Malfoy was once again drinking Ministry-supplied champagne and mulled wine in the company of Harry Potter, Ronald and Hermione Granger-Weasley, Dean Thomas and Theodore Nott, along with a host of assorted others. There'd been the customary self-serving official speeches to get through, and a lottery for a week's hols in Wizarding Cancun, a Silent Auction to benefit war orphans, and a rather decent meal, if one opted for the carved loin-and-potatoes _au gratin_. Harry had chosen the poultry-leek pot pie, merely to be difficult.

"What?" he asked, waggling his expressive brows when Draco stared meaningfully at his half-finished plate. "So it wasn't all that, Malfoy. I just had to give it a try—you never know; I might get lucky one year."

"Right…if you say so, Harry." Draco cocked an enquiring eye at him, attempting to judge Harry's alcohol-to-blood ratio, and made a quick judgment call. "Here, have the rest of mine, do. I'm on a diet anyway."

"You sure?" Harry was hesitant, but interested. He ate an inordinate amount, Draco had discovered, to keep that lean body running in tip-top form. Draco's caloric intake, by contrast, was far smaller for his greater altitude, but then he'd always been picky and he'd always been thin.

"Yes, go ahead. I wouldn't have offered if I hadn't meant it, git."

"Thanks!"

"So sweet, the little lovebirds," Weasel sneered. "You do get off on mothering him, don't you, Ferret?"

"Shut up, Ron," Harry said peaceably. "I like it."

"Huh," Weasel looked askance but let it go. Granger, glancing over from where she and Abbot were deep in discussion of day-care, merely snorted.

Draco sat back to watch the dancers take to the floor and consider his future, on this night of new beginnings. Recently, he'd discussed a few pertinent matters discreetly with young Astoria Greengrass, the sister of his old Slytherin year-mate, and a tentative agreement had been reached for her to bear him a child in exchange for a sizeable monetary settlement, within the next two years or sooner, dependent upon completion of her university-level schooling and whether she found anyone who interested her personally in the interim. Draco was excited, really, by the prospect of a child. It seemed the perfect solution to provide Malfoy an heir, one even his father couldn't quibble with, and his mother would delight in a grandchild.

Harry could do something similar, he thought idly, watching his fellow Auror wolf down the remainder of his dinner. He pushed a basket of garlicky bread twists in Potter's direction, and signaled for another round of champagne and a pitcher of pumpkin juice. Teddy was wonderful, but he was Aunt Andromeda's before he was Harry's and Harry was the type who thrived on having someone of his own to care for. Even if he couldn't settle on a companion, children were still possible.

He'd clue Harry in on how he planned to supply himself with such necessities then, the next time they were at the Gryphon, just the two of them. Likely the git hadn't thought of alternative solutions to the problem—if he'd even recognized there was a problem at all!

Hopeless, Potter was, when it came to forward-planning.

But it was far preferable for Draco to daydream over his own future heir than it was to recall Harry's various shortcomings—and all the painful events of this last year: Draco's debilitating nervousness; his crush and his lust and his heartbreak. Harry's stumbling excuses; his flitting from proverbial flower to flower, his hand in friendship, finally.

Two hours later, bounteous food notwithstanding, the oval table at the back was populated by a quite nicely inebriated lot of Wizarding folk. Ron and Hermione had bolted off home, wanting to stay in Molly's good graces, and a few others in similar circumstances had departed, but there remained a loyal little group of drinkers, and Malfoy and Potter in the centre, trading insults and anecdotes happily.

Harry had his slightly wobbly chin propped on one palm and was regarding Draco with a fond smile. There was a moment—everyone else was up dancing, or chatting, or at the bar or the loo—and Draco enjoyed its unparalleled comfort. He could see doing this every year. He could—with Harry.

"What?" he asked, curious at last when Potter didn't stop staring. "Watcher lookin' at, Harry?"

"_You_," Potter said, and curled his mouth into a lazy, mischievous, _sexual_ grin that knocked Draco into full, shocking sobriety and the sudden realization his evening had just gone all pear-shaped, besides. "Come home with me tonight, Draco."

"Wha—" Draco gurgled, faintly. "Wha-what!?"

All the air in the room dissipated in a twinkling. Draco had thought it a mere figure of speech, but it was true. Potter had literally wrenched the breath right out of his body.

"Exactly as I just said, Draco," Harry purred. "I want you to come home with me." The curl of his lips never faltered, but Harry's eyes were deeper, darker; fathomless, soulful pools of gold-flecked green desire. Draco fell into them, flailing. "I miss you. I _want _you."

"We—I—no—_I can't_, Harry!"

Draco stumbled up in fright—of himself, of Harry—falling half out of his awkward folding metal chair, more than ready to flee for the bar, the lav, the door, fucking _Abysinnia_, wherever it took to escape a serpent's beguiling whisper in the Garden. "I can't! We mustn't!"

"Please, Draco? I need you to, I _do_."

_Oh, Lord_, Draco thought. _Salazar!_

"Draco, oh, Draco."

Time stopped—another figure-of-speech that apparently actually happened, on occasion—and Draco halted in its frozen flow, knees bent at a terribly uncomfortable angle mid-surge out of his clattering chair, wand hand thrust wide and swinging wildly to ward off this new and horribly inviting temptation.

No! They were well past this, he and Harry; old news, for fuck's sake—_oh, but just one more time! What could it possibly hurt to shag him_? Draco's cock was definitely still interested, half a bottle of champagne or no. He could feel his skin taking on that charged feeling Harry's touch always gave him: lightning trickles playing across his belly, his thighs.

"Gods! No, Harry!"

He didn't want to lose him, Draco's mind chimed in, in passing—_he couldn't bear missing any chance of having Harry one more time! _his groin groaned. _No, _no_—he fucking _needed_ it; fucking _had _have it, for pity's sake_!

Why didn't Potter _see_ that this was just absolutely _not on_?! Why didn't Harry bloody realize it was only a very thin line Draco trod: between madness and being best mates for fucking forever?

"Absolutely _not_, Potter! Shut _up_, you drunk! You're talking nonsense!"

"But I want you, Draco," Potter was bloody unstoppable, it seemed, once he got started. "You're a bloody wanker, and a blind man, and everything I've ever wanted, damn you! Come home with me—_come home_."

"Please, _no_, Harry! Don't even start this again, I beg you! Don't even fucking go there!" Draco's hands curled to tight fists instinctively, but he wasn't striking out—couldn't, really. Couldn't even pound the bastard who was gutting him.

_No_!

Damned tears; not manly at all, spilling here in front of all these people who knew him or knew of him. They'd be staring at him, sneering, watching as Malfoy once again fell at the feet of the illustrious Saint Potter. He'd never lift his head again in public—and Harry! Gods, _Harry_—why this offer _now_, when Draco had only just managed to achieve some stability? But Harry was standing up, swift and sure, frozen Time not affecting him in the slightest. He took Draco's upper arm in hand firmly and dragged him closer, nudging them both away from the vibrating table with one hip. All eyes were fixed on them--and the champagne flutes shattering spontaneously, the dirtied plates waltzing with the soiled cutlery.

"Draco," Harry said firmly, giving his captive a little jolt to make sure of his attention, his stern voice throaty and raw, rumbling into Draco's bloodstream like a runaway lorry. "Draco, we're fucking _meant _for one another, you silly sot! Stop denying it, already! Come home with me, _do_," Harry commanded.

Draco's "Harry!" was mouthed silently, a last-ditch effort at keeping hold of something more precious than all his Galleons.

"Now, please," Potter ordered, "I want you _now_," and he snagged Draco's warding palm as well as it skittered through the charged silence, fingers shackling knuckles stuck cold in shock. Draco clutched at the welcome warmth instinctively and despised himself utterly as he leant forward, closer, ever closer to that beckoning mouth, those speaking eyes. And abhored Potter, most sincerely, for tearing him all to shreds on a drunken whim. Would the git do this to Weasel? To Granger? Why only him?

"I beg you," Draco repeated, at last--quiet, forlorn, hopeless, for nothing good could ever possibly come of this--and Harry stopped his lips from trembling by pressing them hard and fast with his own, and took his time coaxing a rosy colour there, exactly the shade of red carnations. For _love_.

Draco had lost count long ago of the times he fallen for Harry—this had to be just one more time amongst many, right? Perfectly understandable, really—they were both pretty squiffy, weren't they? Or perhaps he was already tucked safe away in his bed at the Manor, dreaming? Harry couldn't possibly be looking at him like that—not now, not ever again. They were over, weren't they?

"Harry?"

"Come _on_. Come on home with me, Draco. Now_—this minute_. We've wasted enough time as it is, prat—not anymore, damn it!" Harry informed him, and then Side-Alonged them both in the blink of an eye, and the bloody git must've been far less sodden than Draco believed—or perhaps the extra helping of Draco's dinner had served to stave off the effects of alcohol—for they arrived each in one proper piece, un-splinched and stumbling into one another's arms on the hearth mat.

Draco knew Harry's flat by smell alone, and the taste of his sheets—always the same faint soapy lemon—and Harry kissed his eyelids shut anyway, licking away the stubborn dampness that lingered, and then moved on to give Draco his stolen breath back mouth-to-mouth.

"How can you?" Draco demanded, struggling feebly still as Harry snagged his nape with firm hand and yanked him tight and hard against his chest. "_I_ thought—"

"Shut it, Malfoy," he was advised. Harry stripped Draco's shirt off by ripping it, the bastard. "Talking later—shagging _now_."

*

"Arsehole—motherfucking _tease_, leading me on like that! Humiliating me! You screwed royally with my bloody _head_, Potter! I'll never, ever forgive you!"

"Not exactly, Malfoy—"

"Little shite! Liar! Fuckwit!"

"Could you stop, please?"

"Toying with me, all this time, as if I were just some cheap-arse pub lay you could play with—!"

"Come _on_, Draco, it really wasn't like that—"

"Yes. It. _Was_! It was _exactly_ like that, Harry Potter! You fucking used me! I'll bloody fucking _murder _you for putting me through all that crap! It wasn't even _necessary_, Merlin fuck it! You could've had me ten times over, any damned time you wanted, fucking arsewipe!"

"No, it wasn't, stupid prick!" The green eyes flashed with fire, clashing with stormy grey across the two feet of empty mattress between them. "It wasn't like that at all! It was _you_--you--you _idiot_!"

"I bet!" Draco crossed his arms defensively across his bared chest and sat back against the pillows with a muffled, frustrated snort in lieu of a sufficiently killing comeback. "I just fucking _bet_, Potter!"

"Look, Malfoy, you never said a bloody word yourself, did you? Not once did you ever bother to open your polite, overbred trap and say a single sodding _word _about how you felt about me! 'Oh, hey, Harry, did I happen to mention I've got feelings?' or 'Oh, by the way, Potter, I fucking love you'—did you? _Did you_?!"

"Well, I—" Draco was beet-red now and rigid with remembered shyness and fear. "I—"

"No, you _didn't_, Draco! Oh, _no_! You just shagged me whenever and let me shag you whenever and never said fucking boo to a goose all this time! _A__rsehole_!"

"..What?" That confused Draco; but then having Harry screaming his ardour not twelve inches away also confused the piss out of him. This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd dillydallied over daydreams of mutual confessions last spring. Not at all, really. "_Me_? Harry—"

"You heard me! You bastard! Stupid mute bastard! What the fuck was_ I_ supposed to _do_, Draco? What was I supposed to say to you? Cretin! Bloody buggering blind-as-a-bat-bogey _cretin_!"

"I--_Harry_!"

"Oh yeah, I can just see it now! There's me, all 'Here's my fucking heart, Malfoy, on a bleeding platter—go straight ahead, trample it, why don't you?" Is that it—is _that_ what you wanted?! Selfish berk!"

"_Harry_! Shut the fuck up and listen!"

"I will _not _shut up! You're just as much to blame for this situation as I am, Malfoy! And you damned well know it, idiot wanker! You lied to me! You're still doing it!"

"I do not!"

"You _do_! You _did_!"

"I never meant _any_ of it to be like that, Harry—come _on_! Be serious! How could you even _think_ that? Why would I ever, ever lie to you?!"

Draco's hands were trembling like aspen leaves from sheer force of emotion. He wrapped them round Harry's shoulders to prevent that.

"Well, it sure as shite seemed that way to _me_, Malfoy!" Harry thrust his chin in Draco's face, sneering cruelly. "Lying by omission's still _lying_! _Say_ something next time, why don't you? I nearly killed myself, trying to get you back again once I realized how absolutely _dense_ you really are!"

"Potter! Take that back!" Draco demanded. He was _not_ dense--he'd been dumped, godsdamn it! Told to get off in no uncertain terms! But Harry wasn't done insulting him yet.

"You fucking _fathead_! You stupid _cow_! Of all the dunderheads in bloody old Britain, why the fuck did _I_ have to be landed with the one berk who can't tell the godsdamned difference between a fucking date and a mate's night out at the local?! _Why_!?"

Potter's wide hands were gripping Draco's ribcage, squeezing tight and tighter. He hauled in a choked gasp and ranted right back at his beloved.

"What in Hades are _you_ on about, Potter, if I may just inquire—'tried to get me back again'?! Hah! We were friends! _Friends_! Mates, you arse, just like you said you wanted--_finally_! What the fuck else was I supposed to be _doing_, all this time? You didn't want me! You cast me off! Do you have even the faintest idea how difficult that was? To be there for you, after you bloody fucking _annihilated_ my heart, Harry, when _all _I wanted—all I _ever_ wanted—was to—was to be with you!"

"Fucking shut the fuck _up_!" Harry shook Draco hard, bruising his sides in ten individual places, the killing pressure of fingerprints spread across smooth flinching flesh. They were both hard as blazes, sheets tenting in their respective laps. "I fucking _love_ you, you blind, ignorant freak! Love you!"

"And I fucking love _you_, dickweed! Bite me, Saint Potter! _You're_ the one who--!"

Potter nearly broke an eyetooth, snogging Draco's mouth shut. And Draco nearly bit Potter's damn pouty bottom lip right through, responding. They gave up on talking altogether, after that.

The next discussion of true love and its aftermath was slightly more coherent. But it took at least two more attempts, as Draco recalled fondly later, and a great many inventive insults, a few dents in the plaster, and a broken bedspring or two before they managed to get it even approaching 'right'.

Nothing was ever easy, not with Harry, Draco concluded.

And then—Salazar save him from Weasleys!--and then they had to explain carefully to Ron that Harry did indeed have his head screwed on properly, thank you, and no, it wasn't up his arse, nor Draco's either, mostly, and this wasn't some sort of giant cosmic bad joke on Ron, nor did his luck suck rotten eggs. And Draco was forced to submit himself gingerly to an extremely awkward all-elbows-and-stiff-spines pseudo-embrace from a tight-lipped Hermione Granger-Weasley.

At least little Rosie welcomed him to the family properly, drooling little puss. What a sweetie-pie she was, even though ginger as could be.

After that were Molly Weasley and Draco's Mum, twin forces of bloody fucking Mother Nature, each bent on whipping up the perfect fucking wedding ceremony in a trice, before one or the other of them suggested skiving off to the Highlands and eloping in desperation, thus avoiding all the fuss. And finally there was Draco's father, whom Potter flatly refused to speak to, ever.

Not 'easy', perhaps. But still 'right'.

*

New Year's Day, ten years on, they lay abed, listening to boys giggle outside the window. Potter's Al and Draco's Scorpius, brothers in all but blood, and definitely up to mischief by the sound of it. Lily, Harry's youngest and the only girl in the Manor--and thus, spoilt silly--would've been up ages ago, but Ginevra Weasley was in residence for the month, visiting with her younger son and daughter, and the eldest child, James, was off at the senior Weasley's with the remainder of miscellaneous progeny, basking in his grandparent's fond adoration. It sounded rather as if the rest of the lot staying over at the Manor with Harry and Draco were out cavorting on the Side Lawn, having some sort of free-for-all with snowballs.

The house elves were abustle—they'd planned an Open House, he and Harry, and visitors would be arriving within mere hours, to catch up with Narcissa and her sister, Draco's Aunt Andy; Astoria Greengrass, Scorp's mum-for-hire, in from Vienna for the month for the hols; to make much of young Master Teddy Lupin, now a Flamel University graduate; and to toast in the New Year with the ever-growing associated legions that gathered annually at Malfoy Manor. The New Year would be welcomed with open arms and glad hearts.

"Love you." Draco licked Harry's ear tentatively.

Full-out shagging in the Men's at the Ministry had been a bloody blast, but, gods! His poor arse was so tender! He wriggled it, experimentally, and nudged his just-waking bits accidentally-on-purpose into Harry's, their flesh swelling copacetically as it rubbed together. Mayhap he could bugger Harry instead—

"_Harry_."

"Mmm," Harry sighed, eyes closed tight against the reflected light of midmorning, and opened his mouth wide on Draco's bare shoulder, allowing his canines to mark it yet again. He'd missed a spot along the way last night and that had to be rectified. Fucking uninhibitedly in the Manor's premiere formal drawing room after the yearly Ministry do had been ruddy marvelous, but _Merlin_! Harry's arse would ache like blazes today every time he sat down, for certain sure. Stupid antique French furniture, all gilt and knobby curlicues! Idiot Malfoy and his bloody overgrown dick, jabbing into Harry's innards mercilessly, making him scream! And there it was again, the great thing, poking at him!

"Draco…."

The tone of Harry's sleepy voice was totally contradictory—'touch me'; '_don't_ touch me!' Draco adored that Harry could manage it, even if it drove him potty deciding which unspoken message he should really be heeding this particular moment. He edged the tip of his curious tongue carefully 'round Harry's ear again and then breathed into it, experimentally, and stayed quiet, waiting for a clue.

There was a little silence between them, the 'seconds ticking by' type of hush Harry noticed instantly after so long a time spent in intimate relations with the berk currently wrapped about him like tangled Spellotape. He grinned blind into the stretched skin of Draco's throat, still very salty with recent exertion, and listened intently to the vibrant hum of Draco's expectancy, which asked an eternal question even more pressing than the cock growing very stiff and damp against Harry's belly.

"Love _you_, Draco," he replied finally, blinking tangled sooty lashes, on the exact count of ten, knowing precisely what his companion wanted to hear—had _waited_ to hear, the prat. Merlin forbid Harry _not_ say it back to him, even after all this time, even if they both bloody knew it for fact and lived with the consequences daily in the form of riotous ten-year-olds, overbearing in-laws and far too much media attention to their marriage.

Harry closed his eyes tight again as he spoke, nuzzling closer, till their separate skins were near indivisible and their bodies a study in conjoining planes and curves, a territory mapped and known intimately only to them.

"Love you…always."

"Likewise," Draco mumbled, satisfied, and blushed crimson hot into Harry's hedgehog hair. "Soppy git."

_Finite_


End file.
